Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday March 11, 2014 @05:20PM
from the but-if-everyone-sold-their-plasma-for-a-year dept.

An anonymous reader writes "As luck would have it, I was video-attending the monthly meeting of my alma mater'samateur radio club last night and learned that a local Alumnus had passed, leaving a significant amount of equipment to the club, including a 'Big Bertha' tower that the club does not have a home for. This particular 'Big Bertha,' as it is called, is a 115 foot tall, self-supporting rotatable pole that can support an enormous number of antennae. There are thought to be only a small number of them in civilian use, and this was one of them. I also happen to be a member of the local University'samateur radio club, and our local meeting was right after the Georgia Tech meeting, so upon learning of the availability I immediately informed them that this tower could be had so long as they could support the logistics of moving the tower approximately 100 miles.

After discussing the logistics, and the fact that construction crews would be required on both sides, we came to the conclusion that a significant amount of money would be required, and that your typical intramural basketweaving team bake sale would not do the job. The use case for such a tower is not difficult to make with the University, or with local emergency services who would no doubt love to have space on such a tall tower in such a prime 'top of the hill' geographical location. Zoning will also not be an issue owing to the location having one other taller tower belonging to the college radio station, and a water tower on site. However, with most governments being cash-strapped and unlikely willing to contribute to the project, we need some more ideas on how to raise the needed funds.

So if you're a small University club, and need to raise $30-40K in a hurry, how do you do it? They are working on some small grants from local corporations, and also contacting the manufacturer to see if there is any goodwill there. But, many more ideas are needed. Thanks in advance."

Call wealthy alumni. You could probably get a list from the alumni office.

A school like Georgia Tech would already have a finely tuned fundraising apparatus targeting 'wealthy alumni.'

It is highly unlikely the alumni office would provide this list to just anyone.

However, as a 'parent said, there may be funds available at the school.

The alumni office shouldn't provide this list--it's intelligent to tightly control fundraising efforts, if they know their job; and having someone go off-script or divert a $50K donation from their general fund is a big deal. (Especially since their job is to build that fund and preserve those relationships).

You might be able to get a donation from alums you are aware of--successful entrepreneurs tend to make the biggest donations, but for $40K it would be worth contacting successful engineers and the like

My college fraternity has a paypal donation account and they placed a donation widget on their website. I would create a donation page / small website describing your need and accept donations via paypal if you can. Kickstarter and other crowdfunding take a percentage but if you are a non-profit Paypal doesn't charge...

In a particular case like this, it may be possible for much of the transport work to be done by volunteers from the local ham community.

I think that's probably a good way to go - hams generally love to help others, especially other hams. And nothing's better than helping emergency preparedness either.

Put the call out, and earmark some money for beer and pizza and stuff at the end and you may find that you'll have lots of help - not to pay for the transport, but to actually do it. And I'm sure lots of hams would love to have the chance to actually put up a tower or to learn how to put one up (a good skill to have).

Heck, have workshops as well - turn this not into a "let's get a tower" event but into a whole community involvement and relations thing. After all, you'll get curious onlookers wondering what's going on. It's the perfect time to also do outreach and explain what ham radio is about, what they're good for, and why in an emergency it's good to know a few of 'em.

Nope. I had intention to start a flame war. It was the A.C. above who went off all flame-war-y I did indeed know what the submitter meant, and they were making a false religious insinuation of the sort that is supposed to slip under the wire and go unchallenged in a technical forum where being challenged on correctness is the norm.

Try calling your local National Guard unit, see if you can talk them into using a CH-47 to move it for you as a training exercise. After all, the National Guard needs the training anyway, so give them something in the real world to practice on. Just emphasize that you need it for disaster preparedness.

Try calling your local National Guard unit, see if you can talk them into using a CH-47 to move it for you as a training exercise. After all, the National Guard needs the training anyway, so give them something in the real world to practice on. Just emphasize that you need it for disaster preparedness.

No, but I am sure they know the air units. Also many NG and AR units have large trucks, and lots of low ranking labor to help with the "grunt" work. Maybe they could help with the dismantling/transportation.

They might have some useful contacts to get things moved, with the simple request that they be able to use your tower when there's an emergency. (I think they also like some inside space where they can set up their gear, but it doesn't have to be dedicated space... they were looking at using our conference room 'til they determined that we didn't have good propagation from our town hall))

If they don't have the contacts, they might be able to help you raise funds... like at their various hamfests or relay events. Cash might seem like the best thing to ask for, but in-kind donations go a hell of a lot further and can sometimes be easier to get... it just requires having good contacts or lots of cold calls (trucking companies, crane companies, etc... might also ask telecom companies)

This would not work. Not only are there liabilities if something goes wrong, but how does a chopper align a 140 foot pole over bolts with precision? The alignment process would be very difficult to achieve. And I doubt the government would want to accept responsibility if something goes wrong and there is loss of life, property damage or something else bad.

From the big bertha site they state the mast is bolted together in 20 foot sections so all you need is a crew, crane and a small flatbed truck. The expen

You'd think they could build a climbing crane (or series of bolt on hoists) to assemble this. Red Green would build the hoists out of 2x4s and duct tape, then use a car to pull the sections up.

It kind of obvious and I suspect the OP has already done this, but call the original vendor. They have the expertise. See if you can go watch them put one up. Airfare to most places is relatively cheap vs the cost of putting up this monster.

They might even be willing to help or at least cut you a price for schedu

I assure you we are fully aware of the complexity of erecting this tower. It is not a simple job, and requires a very large crane. Most of the $30-40K expense we're ballparking is in the erection of the new base and assembly of the tower. At the very least a new in-base tube must be fabricated as the original is hopelessly captured in the original base.

It's a fair question.. but, the radio station doesn't want anyone else on their tower, and it's not rotatable either, which means frequent climbing and off-air time for maintaining rotors on ham beams anyway. Having the entire tower rotate on its own is actually far simpler to maintain because working on the motor and bearings does not require climbing, or off time.

But the short of it is that they really just don't want anything to do with us or anyone else being on their tower.

This tower was probably between $150-250K when originally installed. This is not some wimpy guyed truss tower. It's a fully rotatable self-supporting pole - the entire pole rotates on ball bearings at its base. When they sold these new, part of that price included the engineering and installation owing to the necessary soil studies, structural evaluations, and so on.

It requires nearly 30 yards of concrete in the base, and weighs in at nearly 30,000lbs for the taller versions.

There may be an endowment fund that this type of expense might already qualify under, they can help you identify if any such monies exist.

If not, try reaching out to alumni, but DO NOT DO THIS ON YOUR OWN. Work with your school's Alumni Relations group. Alumni Relations likely won't agree to start cold-calling random alumni for your pet project. So propose that Alumni Relations cross-references their alumni list with the Ham Radio callbook. Should be an easy database join (match by name and address). You'll get highly qualified hits that should result in excellent yields. And you can have meaningful conversations with Alumni that should help build/rebuild the alumni's connection with the school, even if they don't give.

I would start with asking them for money... and the local GT hams... and the GT alumni at local ham clubs, of which there are many in the Atlanta area.
However, I think that this will prove to be a white elephant, IMO. I would think long and hard before accepting this gift, unless you can ID a buyer. Advertising on QRZ.com at a steep discount off of list price may get some money for the club. Make certain you actually have a plan on how and where to use, and plan on some expenses for the accessories that

The use case for such a tower is not difficult to make with the University, or with local emergency services who would no doubt love to have space on such a tall tower in such a prime 'top of the hill' geographical location.

It looks like you have two customers already. You could also put up some WiFi antennas and become a wireless ISP. So all you need now is to write a business plan and find investors or take out a loan.

If they install a used BigBertha tower for $50 grand they are doing very well, if they get it for around $40 grand they are doing excellent. If by some chance they get it installed for close to $30 grand (or less)..... I will be amazed and very very happy for them. Big Bertha's are awesome towers.

Sorry erm fund raising well you could try kickstarter but you might need to go viral for success. I'd speak to some of the colleges senior staff and ask them for suggestions they probably know some of the better places to ask. Also look at local charitable associations and find out if any of them have links to any kind of military radio operators (You'd be surprised there are some that only accept army pay clerks).

My Alma Mater hits me up for donations constantly, with hype about how $SPORT team performed last year and the need for a new stadium. Oh, and some random feelgood BS about diversity and student culture and did I know they have classes, in the footnotes?

And I patiently respond to every such solicitation the same way, which boils down to "fuck $SPORT, I'll donate when you promise to put it toward actual academic endeavors". I don't think I alone feel that way, either (hell, just about everyone I associate

Hello everyone, thanks so much for all of your suggestions, especially the one to "call the Army!" We never would have thought of that.

It just so happens that the Major General at the local Army National Guard armory has a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from GT (just like I do), and the CWO5 is a Clemson graduate. So, there may actually be some goodwill, and some amazing publicity, to be had. We will definitely approach them as well as the media relations departments of both universities.

Just based on the fact that the situation involves a former Rear Admiral should be able to open doors for you. Such a person would have had a lot of useful associates. If you could manage to contact that circle of people, you would likely find many people that are happy to help. You could name the tower or facility after him and put of a plaque talking about his career and life. Us military types usually eat up that kind of thing.